


We're Going Down

by GrittyLegitimate



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: F/M, I'm Sorry, but again, but the issue really needs to be addressed, it's more just recollections and experiences, please read this with caution, there's not a graphic description of anything too bad, there's too many trigger warnings and I can't list them all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 04:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19165420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrittyLegitimate/pseuds/GrittyLegitimate
Summary: This is a short story I wrote based on a collection of different works I've read, one in particular, and based off a Tumblr text post I've seen.It's also inspired by Tyler's unreleased song slash poem "Going Down"If you need a reason to stay alive, this is it.There are people out there who love you.





	We're Going Down

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Do Not Tell Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18702121) by [RunawayTyJo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayTyJo/pseuds/RunawayTyJo). 



> Writing this saved my own life, and I'm putting this out there in case there's anyone else that needs to hear this.  
> Suicide won't get rid of all your problems, but it will eliminate the possibility of you ever getting better.  
> I'm sorry if this makes you cry, I wasn't happy writing this myself, but the message is valid.  
> If you need someone to talk to, my DMs on Instagram are open (@gritty_legitimate).  
> If anything I hope this helps someone.  
> Stay alive.  
> I love you all xx  
> ||-//

It'd only been a few days.

But everyone already knew.

It was the sort of news that spread like wildfire simply because it had a shock factor.

No-one wanted to admit it, everyone relying on someone else, anyone else, to break the silence and tell them what they dreaded to hear.

~~Tyler was dead. He'd taken his own life, and broken a gaping hole in everyone else's.~~

 

They'd all abandoned their usual lunch spot that day.

Brendon, Dallon, Josh, Patrick, with an empty space of grass next to their respective arrangement that they all tried so desperately to ignore, but to little avail.

It only dug the knife in deeper, the fact that they'd gone so far as to replace the epicentre of their group with the one thing he admired most; they were foolish enough to think nature would be enough to numb the pain when it only made it worse.

The wind didn't drown out their thoughts, and the sun wasn't going to make them feel fine again.

 

All they could do was sit in silence, a silence that nothing would be able to fill.

They didn't try to start conversation, because they knew any communication they attempted would inevitably fall flat without Tyler's input. They didn't touch their phones, they didn't even look at each other.

It was only when Tyler was gone that they realised how much of a relief he was to this group; the one who always found something interesting to talk about, always had something to share, and always so desperately tried to find ways to lighten his friends' moods with his own instead of just telling them to cheer up.

But with him, Tyler had taken all of his comforting words.

He wasn't there to help them through this, because he was the cause; he wouldn't be able to help them forget.

They'd never be able to forget, because he who they treasured the most was dead.

 

Static buzzing filled the air, an auditory manifestation of the tension, reminding them that they couldn't delay addressing the situation forever.

“What-”

Everyone looked towards Josh, who seemed to choke on his own words. Silent tears shone on his cheeks in the midday sun: a reminder.

“What do you think was the last thing that went through his mind?”

Suddenly, everyone's faces felt a little bit tighter, and the sky seemed a little bit duller.

And so everyone watched as Josh's resolve crumbled, and the crusty salt trails were replenished with a further manifestation of his pain. He shook like the leaves above them as clouds blocked out the sun and whatever hope they might have shared diminished.

Soon, Josh wasn't the only one that was crying.

 

*-*-*-

 

Ashley Dun had barely been given the chance to build a relationship with Tyler before hearing of his death, so why was she crying like she'd lost a best friend, a brother?

When she'd set off on a peaceful weekend walk with Josh, soaking in the beautiful pink-orange palette of clouds in a turquoise sky, she'd stared up at the evening sky and wondered how exactly Tyler would describe such a poetic piece of scenery, even taking the time to capture it on her phone to perhaps send to him later. She wondered how much nostalgia he'd feel from watching the little boy before her excitedly kick a ball to his parents with a proud grin on his face.

When she'd set off, she never expected to return home having to support her brother who was barely able to stand on his own two feet, and she definitely wasn't expecting to break down in tears in the middle of the street, crying for a boy that she'd barely gotten chance to know after Josh had introduced them, crying because she'd never get the chance to know him as well as Josh did.

Regardless of how close they were, Tyler had become a part of Ashley's life, only to be ripped away and leave a gaping hole in her life that stung even more because she'd never been given the chance to cement him into it

She didn't expect to kneel over a disgusting spectrum of bile and half-digested food decorating the ground, trying and failing to regain her posture before falling apart all over again.

When she'd answered Josh's phone as he bounded across the field with Jim, she didn't expect the news she'd receive to freeze her blood in her veins.

 

She couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen Tyler, or been alone with him, or held a proper conversation with him.

She'd never be able to have full closure, if she'd had any to begin with.

She didn't even know if she'd even bade him goodbye last time they'd parted, and now she'd never be able to.

 

*-*-*-

 

If there was one thing Josh had ever loved unconditionally, it was Tyler.

But with Tyler gone, all of Josh's love had been expended as a crippling sort of grief that made his bones hard to carry.

When Josh had finally dragged himself out of bed, he hauled himself to Tyler's house in the hope that'd give him somewhere to direct it.

Josh had revisited his bedroom, a place that felt less like a living space and more like a museum exhibit.

The feeling he got being there was detached and artificial, even though nothing had been moved. It was exactly how Tyler had left it, and that made it unbearable to be in.

 

Sat on his stripped bed, he held Tyler's pride and joy: a worn ukulele.

He found minute comfort in the feeling of the cold polished wood against his hands, and for a brief second he felt like he could feel again.

He could nearly feel his memory taking its toll on how he remembered Tyler; it wouldn't be long until he'd forget his smile, his voice, the way his face lit up when he performed.

That's how he found himself squeezing the instrument tight, as tightly as he could, until the pain was so severe it was a distraction from the boy he was trying so desperately to preserve in his memory.

The strings cut furrows in his fingertips with how tight he gripped them.

With the knowledge that they'd been worn down through Tyler's own touches, he strived to live vicariously through how much care Tyler had treated the ukulele with.

He'd never get to hear him play again.

 

He stared at the mundane brown instrument until his mind had made it lose its sentiment and he set it down on the bare mattress beside him.

Not only was it a reminder about Tyler's passion for music, but it was also a reminder of how terrified he was to confess those passions to his parents.

How he'd trembled with anxiety as the tapes he'd recorded filled the living room, how he'd shook when he'd showed them his self-taught ukulele skills.

It made him so desperately want to go back in time and reassure him that his dreams weren't irrelevant, that he did have talent, and that his parents wouldn't lose their faith in him because he'd found something that made him happy.

But, unlike the cassette tapes his music was recorded on, time couldn't be rewound.

 

Josh didn't go to school the next day, or the day after that.

He didn't even get out of bed, because he saw no point in continuing if Tyler wasn't there for him to do it for.

Instead, he tried to sleep as much as he could; he slept because, for a moment, his mind was at ease.

But every time he opened his eyes, it was always with a fleeting image of Tyler briefly appearing in the tears flooding his waterline, but it was only a blurred reconstruction of the picture of him he always kept on his night stand.

He reached out and touched it gently, with the same care he'd treat Tyler with in person; he touched it like it'd break and shatter under his fingers, like everything seemed to do.

 

He blamed himself, so it was himself that he punished by self-sabotaging everything he could.

Rather than spending time wallowing in his bedsheets, he more often than not found himself stood static under a spray of scalding hot water because he found scorching his own skin a preferable alternative to being left alone for his thoughts to scream abuse.

The red rashes on his skin made him feel something that wasn't just emptiness.

But hurting himself wasn't going to make him forget, not when he knew the pain was to catalyse that.

Self inflicted pain wasn't going to bring Tyler back, or get revenge on whatever toxic thoughts that'd pushed him to the brink in the first place.

And so he sobbed.

 

He cried in the classrooms, he cried in the hallways, he cried in bed.

He cried anywhere that he associated with his best friend, because even seeing the doors to the music classroom Tyler frequented so often was a stab to his weakened heart.

He couldn't carry on like this, but he had to. He had to carry his fabricated guilt until it dissolved into the nothingness it was made from.

Because Tyler had needed him as much as he had needed Tyler.

He felt as though he hadn't been there for him and, as much as he presently wanted to, he wasn't going to leave like Tyler did.

He was going be be there; he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

 

*-*-*-

 

Jenna had trapped herself in a head-space, in her room: a solitary little bubble that, like her stability, was fragile and thin and most definitely wouldn't last long.

Every second she spent anywhere other than here overwhelmed her in an instant, so she acquainted herself with a silence that swallowed her whole and seeped into her skin to replace the gaps Tyler had left.

Her parents had become increasingly concerned, because she never ate, and she never slept.

She never even showered; the sound of the water against the tiles was too much like rain for her to bear.

She remembered how she and Tyler would sit in the conservatory and watch the rain make tracks and patterns across the glass roof, trying to come up with words to describe the weather to pass the time together.

 

Last they'd checked, she was stood staring at the wall, staring at the little imperfection that remained imprinted in the paint.

Jenna remembered when she'd called Tyler to help redecorate and when he'd clumsily put his hand on the wet paint rather than leaning on the door frame as intended, they'd left the print to set in the wall.

It gave the room a unique feel, and Jenna wasn't going to complain about the little bit of Tyler that'd been left behind in with her.

The mark, aged and smoothed, was still prominent now.

His hands were always so much bigger than hers, and not much had changed over time.

The wall was unyielding under her touch, and her fingers barely reached halfway up Tyler's.

She choked on what would otherwise have been a sad, reminiscent smile.

And that was the first major reaction she'd given since learning about his death.

 

When her parents had encouraged her to leave and get some fresh air, she did the opposite.

She headed straight for Tyler's house, letting a stray tear fall before she rang the doorbell and waited expectantly.

Chris Joseph met her with knowing eyes and a solemn expression before she found herself in Tyler's room, absently touching anything and everything.

His laptop, his bare mattress, his window sill and the many trophies that stood on them.

She ran her fingers along grains in the wood of his dresser and stopped when she met cold smooth metal.

The drawer opening was the only noise for miles, and she slowly pulled his yellow sweatshirt from its confides.

His favourite one.

 

The night was silent, and she allowed herself to lie where he once led and briefly feel at peace.

The whole room smelled faintly of mint and vanilla, a combination of scents she closely associated with Tyler.

Nothing else mattered.

She couldn't see nor hear as she convulsed on her side, muffling her sobs with the material, curling herself around it in the foetal position and hoping to become small enough to disappear.

She cursed herself; she wished she'd have shown appreciation for Tyler so much more, like she should have, without the prerequisite knowledge that he'd be gone so soon.

Maybe someday she'd have gotten the chance to hold Tyler so tightly.

 

*-*-*-

 

Chris Joseph couldn't even look at a rope without feeling that awful lump in his throat.

Even before he'd put his hand on the doorknob, he'd known something was wrong.

It was too quiet. At all hours of the night, there'd usually be the background noise of Tyler talking over the phone to somebody-or-other, gushing about Jenna, or about his music.

The boy could make conversation out of anything.

And Tyler always slept with the light on, a quirk that Kelly may not have been very happy about, but that she always found endearing and unique to him.

There was no crack of light coming from under his door.

 

He'd knocked with no answer, so he pushed the door open.

He'd never be able to get the silhouette of his hanging son out of his mind again.

Seeing the awful scene outlined by the dim silver of street lamps from outside ripped a scream from his chest and brought everyone stampeding up the stairs.

Everything after that was a blur: the exchanges over the phone; the hurried pitter-patter of feet on carpet; the repeated screams of Tyler's name; the ever-moving crowd of bodies surrounding his eldest son.

Even the piercing sounds of the ambulance were muted by his shock, the flashing red and blue disorienting him as he supported himself against the wall, barely able to feel the tears rolling off his nose.

 

Every time he passed that room, he hurried; he didn't need to be reminded of his son's hanging body, slack faced and purple.

He couldn't exist without the constant presence of guilt in the form of bile at the back of his throat.

Because he remembered hearing the thump of that chair, the chair that ultimately took his son's life, against the carpet over his head.

And he thought nothing of it.

No-one had blamed him, as they all sat on the sofa together in silence.

No-one in his family blamed him for what had happened, none of them blamed him for not knowing exactly what that thump was, but he never really took their reassurance to heart.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he found himself warming up to their words and slowly his guilt started to leave.

Until, one day, someone dropped a glass on the carpet with a small, barely-there 'thunk' and it all started over again.

 

*-*-*-

 

Every time Kelly Joseph looked at herself in the mirror, the bags under her eyes were more prominent and the hollows of her cheeks seemed to have dug themselves a little bit deeper.

She wouldn't be surprised if, one day, she'd wasted away and there was nothing but the void black eyes of a skull staring at her from her reflection.

Even then, she wouldn't know, because every time she saw her face, the tears built up again.

In Tyler's absence, she'd finally picked out all the aspects of her face Tyler had inherited from her, and she cried for it.

She'd never seen the similarities that people had always pointed out to her, but now she could because that face was imprinted on the front of her skull, a cross reference that she'd never get to see again.

 

Her shaky breath fogged up the glass.

She remembered how Tyler always used to draw smiley faces in the clouded windows of their car when he was younger, no matter how many times she'd told him not to do it.

She'd never really been all too mad, because hearing him laugh over something so simple always gave her life, and who was she to take the happiness away from him?

Even when he was the one who went on to take all the happiness away from her?

Her pride and joy, her baby boy...

She'd always been so proud of him, in regards to every achievement he'd gotten.

It'd broken her heart when Tyler was so panicked about revealing his musical ambitions, and she'd reassured him that she'd support him every step of the way.

Sometimes she wished she'd clarified that a little bit more.

 

The water in the bathroom sink was a little saltier than it had the right to be.

She wanted to go back to the graveyard and talk to him one more time.

She wanted to tell him about the trees.

She wanted to tell him about the how the sun tasted and what the moon felt like.

She wanted to tell him about all the people that'd ever smiled because of something he'd said, something he'd done.

She wanted to remind him of just how much his family loved him, and that they'd never give up supporting him.

But that wouldn't bring him back, because he'd done what he'd done and nothing could change that.

 

*-*-*-

 

After exiting the bathroom, Zack stared at the door to Tyler's room blankly, the lingering wetness on his fingers briefly forgotten as he stared at the plain white wood.

The door screamed at him, “TYLER”, in obnoxious blue letters that didn't instil a sense of guilt, sadness, or emptiness.

It filled him with longing.

For a boy that was once convinced by his brother that fairies actually existed, it was quite ironic that he was stood frozen in the hallway, desperately trying to convince himself that Tyler still existed himself, and that he was merely sleeping behind that mocking white plank of wood.

Call him a fool, but he refused to accept that Tyler was gone.

This must have been a joke, a bit of a sick practical joke, and Tyler would walk out of that room with his crooked grin on his face and ukulele in hand, ready to sing to the mourning ensemble downstairs.

But Tyler rarely played practical jokes, so where was he?

 

Tyler was dead, the light hand on his shoulder reminded him.

Zack turned round, and the red-rimmed eyes of Jordan met his.The pre-teen looked miserable, like he'd taken all of his brother's guilt onto his own shoulder and was more than ready to take Zack's on, too.

He needed to do this on his own.

That touch, for him, was less of a reassurance and more of something for Zack to ground himself with; he shouldn't let himself get carried away.

He needed finality; that name still being there fuelled his false sense of reality.

The name needed to go.

One by one, Zack peeled the letter stickers off until there was little more than faint glue outlines of the letters remaining, which Jordan helped him to erase by rubbing until the door was bare again.

Tyler was gone, and Zack had to accept that.

He hadn't even noticed his hands shaking until Jordan took one in reassurance, and the two boys descended the carpeted stairs side-by-side, wordlessly.

 

Everyone was here.

Everyone was silent.

Everyone was mourning.

No-one uttered a word, knowing anything they said would just float right through the air where Tyler should be sat.

 

Josh and his girlfriend Debby sat on the floor together, holding each others' hands and conveying reassurances with their eyes.

Chris and Kelly simply sat by each other, either presence a comfort.

Ashley and Jenna sat silently observing the picture of Tyler that Josh had snatched from his night stand. Jenna's fingers gently brushed over her boyfriend's frozen smile: but a cheap imitation.

Jordan and Zack sat on the sofa with Jay and Madison, who were too young to really understand what was going on, but they weren't oblivious; they knew something was wrong.

The most clueless was Jim, whose tail had been perked up when he'd arrived with Josh and Debby, but had slowly lowered as the situation seemed to set in.

Where was the boisterous boy that always greeted him with a lopsided grin and rubs and cuddles?

Where was the friend who accompanied Josh, no matter where he went or what he did?

 

“ _He's like a child.”_

“ _So somewhat like you?”_

_Jim's silhouette darted rapidly through the bursts of long grass, a blue-black shadow in amongst the streaks of dark green and purple. Tyler wasn't in much of a mood to jest, he made no comment in return._

 

Jim softly pressed himself to Josh's side, who looked down at him solemnly.

 

“ _When you lot are older, do you want to have kids?”_

_While Dallon, Brendon and Josh scoffed at the question, Tyler only glared._

“ _I'm serious!”_

“ _You're thinking a bit too ambitiously there, Tyler.” Dallon sipped his milkshake._

“ _Yeah, we're only sixteen. We've got plenty of time to think about that in the future.”_

_Brendon was right, and Tyler deflated slightly._

“ _I can't wait to have kids. When I have kids, I'll have found a purpose.”_

_Despite himself, Josh smiled._

“ _I'm sure you'll be a great dad, Tyler.”_

 

And so everyone watched as Josh's resolve crumbled once more.

Soon, Josh wasn't the only one that was crying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  


 


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